Tuesday, 12 October 2010

When you buy everything Forgeworld release, you can make some cool shit!

I've been working on some jump pack models today. Mainly Sanguinary Guard and Honour Guard as knocking out row upon row of Assault Marines can be pretty tedious!

Whilst in the new rules he is pretty lacklustre for his high points cost, Dante has always been an iconic character for any Blood Angels force and I wanted to have the option to use him Counts As if the mood took me. Using the Sanguinary Guard kit and various other resin parts I went about making a model that can not only stand in as Dante but also will look the part as simply a Sanguinary Guard 'sergeant'. As with My Corbulo and my Chief Librarian conversions I again went for the angellic and demonic juxtaposition which I feel reflects the history and the image of the Flesh Tearers. Underneath the 'Death Mask' of this model we find the hideously disfigured face of Lord Zhufor! In his left hand he carries the Death Mask which was painstakingly removed from Dante's torso which remained from the Corbulo/Sanguinary Priest conversion I did previously (Kids NEVER throw away bits!) and in his left is a converted and repositioned Power Axe taken from Sevrin Loth's Honour Guard using the haft of a Space Wolf Terminator axe. I should just say that Sevrin Loth is one of the best value things on sale at Forgeworld. You get an insanely beautiful Librarian model which is a synch to remove chapter detail, you get resin torso and weapons sets for 4 Honour Guard models AND you get a complete plastic Command Squad in the bag. That's great value at £36 pounds! I intend to sculpt a cloak or ornamental cape over his left shoulder, possibly using lizard skin to represent the homeworld of Cretacia. Anyway, here he is.....

Malach, Captain of the Flesh Tearers Sanguinary Guard

As he could be used as a regular Sanguinary Guard or even with Sanguinary Guard utilising Dante's ability to make SG Troops, I needed to build a Sanguinary Priest to run with them. I would imagine that a Sanguinary Priest who is deployed alongside these living legends in battle would be of a particularly high standing and senior rank, especially within the heavily depleted numbers of the Flesh Tearers. I gave him the honour of wearing the Artificer armour of the Guard and armed him with a Lightning Claw. This was a pretty simple kitbash with not much in the way of conversion of sculpt work so I may go back to him and add some detailing.

Then on to the Honour Guard. The highest ranking veterans within the Chapter I envisioned these marines as almost Captains in their own right. Whilst keeping their wargear understated I wanted to represent their history and status. Using some of the Forgeworld armour variants helped greatly and I utilised some resin shoulderpads to give them that little flourish. Arming them as I intend to use them with the special weapons on models I don't intend to be absorbing Power Weapon hits, whilst the Storm Shield wielders carry no extra weapons to keep costs down. Why would you want to risk your Thunder Hammer not getting to strike by using him to take a 3++ save when not necessary? 3+ and 4+ FnP is more than adequate against mundane CCW attacks.